Oh dear.

According to the trial record, Marcus ran a Web site that featured photos he had taken of women who acted as "sex slaves" and were subjected to varying levels of physical abuse. The woman at the center of the case — identified only as "Jodi" — had met the defendant in 1998 and agreed to participate in his commercial activities.

At issue was whether Marcus took the relationship too far and held Jodi against her wishes. Prosecutors claim he manipulated and forced the woman to undergo the punishment, then write about it for the Web site. The incidents took place at various locations between 1999 and 2001.

Attorneys for Marcus said the relationship was consensual, even enjoyable, and that Jodi had signed an employment contract and was provided for through the for-profit Web site, which had paying members and advertising. They also said that while the public may find the details unsettling, it was done in the privacy of homes.

The woman testified she felt like a prisoner and she could not escape her situation. Her head was shaved and the word "slave" was written on her stomach by Marcus with a knife. She claimed she was whipped regularly, hung by her arms from posts, and subjected to a range of humiliating poses.

Marcus was initially sentenced to nine years in prison. However, the appellate court overturned the previous ruling, deeming that the law used to prosecute Marcus - the 2000 Trafficking Victims Protection Act - was not in effect during the time of some of the offenses.

Much of the press interest in this case revolves around Justice Sotomayor's role in the appeals process, where she was among the justices who voted to overturn the conviction.

Supreme Court To hear Case About 'Sex Slave' Web Site [CNN]

In this month's Farrah-or-Michael-bedecked Vanity Fair, Mark Seal has a profile of Ruth Madoff. Well, sort of. Certainly he has dozens of comments and quotes from those who knew and worked with her, back when she and Bernie were high-school sweethearts in Queens, to her days as a modest young housewife, and through the rise and fall of the family's glittering, ill-gotten social career. All of these quotes, after all, are given in hindsight - and as in any such case, it's impossible to know who's claiming to have "always" suspected what and to what extent her current infamy is coloring their recollections of a woman who, apparently, was something of a chameleon anyway.

Having read the piece you come away with the impression that Ruth was a Stepford wife - or a woman who never lost her outer-borough rough edges. A warm and supportive employer or a demanding martinet. Social or cool. Desperately insecure, or at ease. Retiring or funny and warm. A perfectly controlled hostess or a foul-mouthed harridan. A canny businesswoman or a trusting wife who, personally, lost her father's inheritance. A pathetic victim or a selfish charlatan.

One thing's for sure: Bernie was her life. The consensus is that Ruth devoted herself to making his life comfortable, to looking perfect for him, and would hear no word spoken against her husband, even in jest. Says one family friend, "Ruth was absolutely under Bernie's thumb. If Bernie said, ‘Jump,' Ruth would say, ‘How high?' If her makeup was slightly off, he'd say, ‘What happened to your face?' For Ruth, looking good was all for Bernie."

Even on the subject of her guilt, acquaintances are divided. While no one believes in her total ignorance, some point to the fact that she lost some of her own money to the scheme as a proof that, up until that time at least, she couldn't have known everything. While everyone says she was canny and sharp-eyed and ran Bernie's books in the early days, it's also understood that she didn't have much of a grasp of modern technology, and one computer teacher quoted in the piece says he thinks any kind of online banking would have been beyond her. Says Seal,

In the course of writing three stories on the Madoff case for Vanity Fair, I've spoken to close to 100 people who knew Ruth, Bernie, and their family, and the majority believe that Ruth must have known about the scheme. Otherwise, if she was embarrassed, ashamed, betrayed, and confused, as she said in her statement, why did she stay with Bernie during his three months of house arrest-apparently at the cost of losing her sons, Mark and Andrew, who say they haven't spoken to their mother since the still not fully explained day in their parents' kitchen when Bernie confessed his crime to them with Ruth standing nearby? She's still under scrutiny by investigators, as are her sons, Bernie's brother, and Frank DiPascali Jr. and Annette Bongiorno, who directed Madoff's investment-advisory business, on the 17th floor of the Lipstick Building, in Manhattan. One longtime observer of the Madoffs told me that Ruth's statement, like everything preceding it in the case, may very well be just one more example of Bernie Madoff's brilliance at deception and manipulation. He always ran the show, and probably still does, the observer believes. From the day he turned himself in and pleaded guilty, Madoff was determined to take the fall alone. He continues from behind bars to try to control every detail of his destiny, including, at least one person is willing to venture, Ruth's statement.

As one former friend puts it, "Quite frankly, I don't know whether she knew or not-and I don't know which is worse. Either way, it's a tragedy for her. He's ruined a lot of families, but none worse than his own." Despite the fact that Ruth has, as the piece terms it, "cut a deal with prosecutors to keep $2.5 million in exchange for surrendering a potential claim to $80 million in assets, including her homes," and despite the rage her oblivious and ass-covering public statement has engendered, there are moments when you forget. When it's hard to, in one thought, reconcile the woman's loneliness and coupon-clipping with the entitlement and ill-gotten gains and, at best, total disconnect from reality. Perhaps this is why the author takes the precaution of beginning each section of the six-page article with a quote from one of Madoff's defrauded investors - all in circumstances far more straitened than Ruth's.

I think this is part of what fascinates people - perhaps especially women - about this case. On the one hand, this was a model of rarely-seen, retro marital unity unusual in a milieu where we're used to seeing multiple spouses rather than high-school sweethearts. Indeed, her behavior reads like a template from a mid-century good-wife's guide, down to turning a blind eye to possible infidelity. Says Seal, "She called her incarcerated spouse Doll, Darling, Baby, and Sweetie. She tried not to be dull or depressing; she wanted to be at her best for him." In short, she had no life beyond him. I think we have a certain scorn for that. And yet, there's more: maybe this is what makes it so confusing, her behavior so enigmatic: why devote your life to standing by your man, only to let him take the fall alone? Of course, that's what her husband wanted - people are pretty sure he's committed to going down solo - and it seems like she doesn't know how to operate outside his orbit. But still, I wonder if this doesn't factor into our contempt (not that there aren't plenty of legitimate reasons for it): she's getting off scot-free...and letting him go it alone. At best this is blind loyalty in the face of self-respect. At worst, despicable - and still depdendent. Is it just that she's out and free and relatively affluent? Sure. But I think there's another element that adds to our vitriol, and has spared Madoff's sons and brother. Yes, she's stood by him; yes, she visits him as often as possible. But compared to a life of such unity, this feels discordant. And I think we hate what we don't understand almost as much as what we know is deeply wrong. Ruth gives us both.

Ruth's World [Vanity Fair]

Detectives were not recording the interview, but transcripts show that Weinman said to police: "OK, so let me see if I understand. As long as I can tell you about the cats that I did, you can get rid of the others?" Police later arrested the 18-year-old on charges of mutilating and killing more than 19 cats around Miami-Dade county. The remains of over 30 animals were found in the area, and so far no one else has been charged.

Weinman is facing 19 counts of animal cruelty and improperly disposing of an animal body, along with four counts of burglary. After the first interview, during which he made the incriminating offer to tell "about the cats [he] did," Weinman was not interviewed again until June 14th, when the warrant was issued for his arrest. Police asked Weinman what he thinks should happen to the killer, to which he replied: "I don't really like jail, though when it comes to violent things, I think they should..." He did not finish the sentence.

Weinman's lawyer, David Macey, claims that the police documents are "either misleading and or false." He continued: "The real statement will never be heard because the investigation—with its unlimited resources—failed to find a tape recorder. They did not want to record the truth, that Tyler Weinman is innocent."

Police: Suspect In Miami-Dade Cat Killings Wanted Deal [Miami Herald]
Cat Killing Suspect Allegedly Wanted To Cut A Deal [CBS4]

The story, not involving Americans, hasn't gotten a ton of play Stateside, but since 2006 the name Véronique Courjault has been familiar to anyone in France. The couple was living in South Korea when police found the bodies of two newborns in the freezer of the home Courjault shared with her engineer husband Jean-Louis and their two sons. Although the family initially denied any knowledge, Véronique later admitted to giving birth to both babies in secret and smothering them - in addition to a third baby she'd buried back in France.

Prosecutors apparently accept the fact that her husband was totally oblivious to the three pregnancies, home deliveries, and stranglings - to say nothing of the babies stashed in the freezer for years. (He allegedly found them when attempting to make room for a fish in 2006.) This mystery - as well as the motivations of the friendly kindergarten aide - have created a lurid national fixation with the case, currently on trial in Tours. Until recently, a Facebook page existed in which users could bet on the verdict.

Neither husband nor wife seems able to provide any explanation - although some family members do say that Veronique was prone to dramatic shifts in weight that might have explained his obliviousness. (Although, you know, being pregnant will do that.) As to Courjault herself, she only says, "What I did is so monstrous, without explanation...For me, those children did not have a real existence." The issue, for many, is why she chose to carry the babies to term - well, okay, one of the issues. And in addition to the very odd and lurid particulars of the case, is the dreadful fascination that always accompanies cases of infanticide - a crime so universally reviled as unnatural that it provokes the greatest self-righteousness, horror, and confusion of any kind of crime.

In fact, it's not that uncommon - homicide is apparently the 4th leading cause of death of children under four. Many of these are attributed to Postpartum depression, or in cases like that of Andrew Yates, Postpartum psychosis. Of the 49 women on death row, nearly 11 are there for murdering their children - and in almost every case, the women claim they knew they were in danger of doing so, but were ignored. Says one medical anthropologist, '"There's a collective denial even when mothers come right out and say, "I really shouldn't be trusted with my kids."' Simply put, we want to think it's rare and horrible. Horrible it might be, but pretending it doesn't happen does no one any favors. When one of these high-profile cases occur, we are duly horrified; there is a flurry of analysis and speculation; we are told of the warning signs; then we forget about it. One hopes that the Véronique Courjault case will move beyond the "why was she a secret monster - and how did she hide it?!" speculation to the realization that this can happen - and how to prevent it.

Veronique Courjault, French Woman Who Allegedly Killed Her Babies And Hid Them In The Freezer, Goes On Trial [Huffington Post]
Infanticide Case Mesmerizes France [Washington Post]

Related: Women Who Kill Their Children [About.com]

Mothers Who Kill Often Give Warnings [Women's News]

Knox, 21, took the stand for the first time on Friday, after being arrested in November 2007 shortly after the murder of British student Meredith Kercher, 21, in Perugia, Italy. Speaking in English and fluent Italian, Knox said that on the night of the murder she was at her Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito's house and that the two smoked marijuana, watched Amélie, had sex and fell asleep, reports the New York Times. When she returned the next morning, she says the door to her apartment was open and Kercher's door was locked, and eventually she decided to call the police. Four days later she and Sollecito were arrested on charges of murdering Kercher in a sex game gone awry and tampering with the crime scene to make it look like a robbery.

Knox testified that during her interrogation, police said the "wanted a name" and pressured her to accuse her boss at the bar where she worked, Patrick Lumumba, of the crime. According to MSNBC, Knox said a policewoman hit her twice in the head:

"Do you remember? Do you remember? And then boom! On the head," Knox said, mimicking the slap in court. "I went: mamma mia! And then again, another boom!" ... "It didn't hurt, but it frightened me," she said of the slaps.

After hours of questioning and what she described as "a steady crescendo... of 'I don't know,' 'you're a stupid liar', 'maybes', and 'imagines' that..." she gave written testimony saying she was in the kitchen blocking out Kercher's screams while Lumumba committed the murder. Knox says she wrote the statements in an attempt to focus her thoughts after police spent hours trying to put ideas in her head. "I wasn't sure what was my imagination and what was reality," she said.

Knox explained:

When I said "Patrick" I actually started to imagine a kind of movie, images that could have explained the situation, Patrick's face, then [Perugia's] Grimana square, then my house on the night of the murder.

Lumumba has been cleared by prosecutors and is suing Knox for defamation.

Prosecutors asked Knox why she told her mother that she felt bad about sending Lumumba to prison in a bugged phone call from prison, but failed to tell police he was innocent. She said she didn't trust the police anymore because in her first few weeks in jail she was tested for HIV and told she had AIDS, before another test two weeks later proved she was negative, reports The Independent.

Knox also told her mother she was concerned that police found her kitchen knife at Sollecito's house. Forensic experts testified that it has Kercher's DNA on the tip and Knox's on the handle, but she said she wasn't upset because she knew it was the murder weapon. "I was worried because for me it was impossible. I didn't know how it could be there," she said. Attorney Anne Bremner, spokeswoman for Friends of Amanda, told Time that video from the crime scene proves police collected evidence incorrectly, and that the kitchen knife actually, "doesn't match an outline of the knife on the bed."

During cross examination on Saturday, Knox was asked by prosecutors to reveal details about her personal hygiene, sex life and drug use. She told them that she slept with Sollecito the first time she met him, and she was questioned about a $279 municipal citation she received for a party she and her friends held at the University of Washington, asking if the party involved "alcohol, drugs, people throwing rocks" and "naked people inside." Knox said the citation was just a noise violation.

She also denied that she was friends with Rudy Guede, the 22-year-old Ivory Coast native who has already been jailed for 30 years for murdering and sexually assaulting Kercher, the BBC reports. On Friday Guede told the press from prison, "You know you were there, Amanda, tell the truth."

In a sad concidence, Knox's testimony this weekend coincided with what would have been her college graduation. Knox's family and friends will testify for the defense next, with her mother, Edda Mellas, taking the stand on Friday.

In the video below from the Today show this morning, Curt Knox says he thinks his daughter stood up well to aggressive questioning from prosecutors.

American Testifies In Her Murder Trial In Italy [The New York Times]
Amanda Knox: Slain Woman Was a Friend [MSNBC]
Knox In The Witness Box: 'I Did Not Kill Meredith' [The Independent]
How Strong Is The Evidence Against Amanda Knox? [Time]
Lawyer Challenges Knox Testimony [BBC]